The Distortion of Sound: A Short, Insightful Documentary About the Decline of Sound Quality

Taylor Swift recently wrote an optimistic op-ed about the future of the music industry, but new documentary The Distortion of Sound presents a more muted analysis: specifically, it tackles the decline of sound quality that has been a natural result of the industry’s expansion and shift away from physical formats. It’s a short film—only around 20 minutes long—but there are some big names involved, including Snoop Dogg, Slash, Hans Zimmer, and Kate Nash.

The film lays on the digital-is-doom spiel a little thick—I would have liked some more nuanced discussion of the varying forms of compression, and of lossless formats like FLAC—but there’s still some some fresh insight regarding how we care more about the convenience of streaming and compressed formats than the audio quality itself. Enjoy.

Sharan Shetty is on the editorial staff of the New Yorker. You can follow him on Twitter.